Steve O'Dwyer Takes Down Winner-Take-All 3-Handed €25k MCOP High Roller
None other than Steve O'Dwyer took down the €25,500 Super High Roller at the Master Classics of Poker in Holland Casino Amsterdam. O'Dwyer defeated Patrik Antonius and Stefan Wolzak to win his first Master Classics of Poker tournament. He took home the first place prize of €74,250 ($84,193) and the decorative MCOP plate.
The tournament was supposed to start at 2 p.m. local time but was delayed. O'Dwyer and Wolzak were both seated at the table; waiting for a third player to join the field. Antonius arrived in the casino and registered around 4 p.m., and they had enough players to start the tournament. A couple of other players were interested in the tournament but opted to play either the €1,600 progressive bounty tournament or they joined the high stakes cash game action instead.
Dutchman Wolzak had a very good start of the tournament. Right before the end of the second level, he managed to win a big pot where he had two pair, holding ace-trey, against Antonius. Wolzak entered the first break of the day with over half of the chips in play. Wolzak continued to put pressure on both of his opponents after the break.
Antonius ended up as the first player out of the tournament. O'Dwyer took Antonius' remaining 10,000 after he had three-bet and Antonius four-bet all in. O'Dwyer made the quick call, and he was well ahead with his pocket aces against the king-queen suited of Antonius. The board ran out eight-deuce-four-deuce-six. It was all over on the turn, and O'Dwyer took down a nice pot with pocket aces to get to about the same stack of Wolzak.
The heads-up battle started out pretty slow; most of the pots were won by a single continuation-bet on the flop. The first big pot of the heads-up went to O'Dwyer after he got full value with a full house against a flush of Wolzak. Wolzak was left with 'just' 63 big blinds. From that moment on, it was Wolzak who was trying to fight back, but in the end, he couldn't make the longed-for comeback.
In the final hand of the tournament, it was Wolzak who raised to 600 from the button. O'Dwyer called to see a deuce-ten-six rainbow flop. O'Dwyer check-called a bet of 700 from the Dutchman to see the king of clubs on the turn. O'Dwyer checked again, and Wolzak put in a bet of 2,800. O'Dwyer called, and the jack of clubs completed the board with the third club. O'Dwyer checked for the final time to Wolzak, and he announced a bet of 4,500. O'Dwyer thought about it for a minute before he moved all in. Wolzak went into the tank and called after about two minutes. O'Dwyer opened up five-deuce of clubs for a backdoor flush, and Wolzak had to show pocket aces with the ace of clubs.
O'Dwyer got to collect €74,250 at the cashier for winning the tournament and got to take home his first MCOP trophy. O'Dwyer is a frequent visitor of the Master Classics of Poker, but he had yet to take down a tournament in Holland Casino Amsterdam. Today he finally did so. While he only had to beat two opponents to do so, the plate he received is all the same. O'Dwyer told PokerNews that it was a tough field, despite the tournament having only three entries. He added that he is very happy to finally take down an MCOP tournament so he can add that trophy to his collection.
PokerNews will be back in Holland Casino Amsterdam tomorrow to provide MCOP live updates for the final day of the massively popular €1,600 progressive bounty event.
Milko van Winden has been a part of the poker media corps since 2017. Starting out as [I]PokerNews[/I] contributor and live reporter, Milko is now the Digital Media Manager at [i]PokerNews[/i].
